By Caroline Wyatt BBC Paris correspondent

Angelique Fraisse (left) was left paralysed by a drunk driver aged 16

A judge must decide whether a young French couple who allowed a friend to drive home drunk after a dinner party are partly culpable for his accident.

The friend, Frederic Colin, died, as did a family of four in another car.

The couple are accused of failing to prevent a crime, and of being partly responsible for the deaths.

The couple could face a five-year prison sentence and a fine if the prosecution is successful. The court's decision will be announced on 18 or 19 October.

The case concerns a night in February 2000 when newly-weds Angelique and Jean-Sebastian Fraisse invited a friend for drinks and dinner at their home in the Moselle region.

All were drunk by the end of the evening, and the couple say they tried to persuade their friend Frederic to stay the night rather than drive himself home.

The Fraisses offered him a bed and even tried to hide his car keys and lock him in their flat.

Drunken exit

But they say he became angry and began hammering on the door until they gave up and let him out at 3.45am.

Shortly afterwards, he was driving on the wrong side of a main road when he crashed into a car carrying a young family of five.

There was only one survivor, a five year old girl.

Her grandmother brought the case against the couple, claiming they should have done more to stop their friend driving, and called the police when they saw him get into his car.

An earlier attempt to prosecute the couple failed, and even this time, the prosecutor has made clear he thinks the couple did all they could to prevent the man driving home drunk.